Surely BJP’s intentions have to
be understood and his apology is purely strategic. BJP as a party has to work
within the confines of Constitution as it has to swear by it legally. Still
when BJP led NDA Government came to power in 1998, it did appoint Venkatchaliah
Commission to review the Constitution; probably that was the first open and
subtle ‘statement of purpose’ from its side. It’s another matter that seeing
the total opposition to its move of reviewing Constitution from large sections
of society, the Commission report was dumped.
After Modi led NDA Government
came to power (2014), on the occasion of Republic day 2015, it issued and
advertisement with the preamble of Constitution in which words Secular and
Socialist were missing. In November 2017 Yogi Adityanath stated that word
secularism is biggest lie in India.’
The BJP will not reveal its
deeper agenda so easily at present. Still it can be understood that BJP is not
comfortable with the present Constitution and laws be it the one’s related to Article
370 (Kashmir), Article 25 (freedom of religion), article 30 (about
minorities setting up educational institutions). As BJP is a part of RSS
combine, one has to look at what RSS ideologues state, what its associates like
VHP and others say on the issue. These organizations have times and again
articulated their opposition to Indian Constitution and their goal of making the
one based on Holy Indian scriptures.
As
such the whole attempt of Hindu nationalist political formations is to try to
pave the way for Hindu nationalism by using the democratic secular space which
the present Constitution gives.
RSS ideologue Golwalkar
in his writings like ‘Bunch Of Thoughts’ argues that
territorial nationalism, which is the basis of Indian Constitution, is a
barbarism, since according to him a nation is ‘not a mere bundle of political
and economic rights’ but an embodiment of national culture —in India, ‘ancient
and sublime’ Hinduism. It sneers at democracy, which Golwalkar sees as alien to
Hindu culture, and lavishes praise on the Code of Manu, whom Golwalkar salutes
as ‘the first, the greatest, and the wisest lawgiver of mankind’.
When
the Constituent Assembly of India passed the Constitution of India on November
26, 1949, RSS was not happy. Its organ, Organiser in an editorial on
November 30, 1949, complained: "But
in our Constitution there is no mention of the unique constitutional
development in ancient Bharat. Manu’s Laws were written long before
Lycurgus of Sparta or Solon of Persia. To this day his laws as enunciated in
the Manusmriti excite the admiration of the world and elicit spontaneous
obedience and conformity. But to our constitutional pundits that means
nothing."
VD Savarkar has been the major ideologue from whom most of
the Hindu nationalists draw their inspiration. He argued: "Manusmriti is that scripture
which is most worship-able after Vedas for our Hindu Nation and which from
ancient times has become the basis of our culture-customs, thought and
practice. This book for centuries has codified the spiritual and divine march
of our nation. Even today the rules which are followed by crores of Hindus in
their lives and practice are based on Manusmriti. Today Manusmriti is Hindu Law."
Deendayal Upadhayay has been another major
ideologue of RSS combine. He was part of Bharatiya Janasangh, previous avatar
of BJP. He says that India had written a Constitution imitative of the West,
divorced from any real connection to our mode of life and from authentically
Indian ideas about the relationship between the individual and society.
Like previous ideologues Upadhyay
also felt that the Constitution should embody a Hindu
political philosophy befitting an ancient nation like Bharat, that of reducing
the Indian national idea to a territory and the people on it was fallacious. According
to him the nationalist movement, from the Khilafat agitation onwards, has turned
towards a policy of appeasement of the Muslim community, a policy in turn
sought to be justified by the need to forge a united front against the British.
He was all through critical of Indian Constitution,
as he argued his case for Hindu nation. His ideology seems to be one of the
major inspirations for present leadership of BJP. BJP’s discomfort with
articles 25, 30 and 370 etc. is mainly as these articles aim at affirmative
action in a plural diverse society. These draw from the basic notion of Equality
inherent in Indian constitution. Most of the ideologues, the source of BJP
ideology uphold Manusmririti, no wonder this was the precise book which
architect of Indian Constitution, Babasaheb Ambedkar consigned to the flames!
